I'm not sure when the exact moment occurred, or with
whom, that the idea of a touring teen star to adoring
teenage audiences first took hold – Donny & Marie? David
Cassidy? Joan of Arc? Back in my day it was Paul Anka,
Fabian and Frankie Avalon (though for a while I used to
think they were the same person.) Now there's Hannah
Montana and Miley Cyrus (who actually are the same
person).

At the time of the start of the Best of Both Worlds
Concert Tour in October 2007, Miley Cyrus had just
turned 15, with the Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana" TV
show - where Miley played a mild-mannered teenager by
day and a rock star named Hannah Montana by night - well
into its second season. The very popular Jonas Brothers
- Nick, Joe and Kevin – who share the spotlight with
Miley, were 15, 18, and 20 at the time of the tour.

The stage director for the concert itself is Kenny
Ortega, who was also responsible for the High School
Musical movies. The film of the BOBWC tour was spliced
together from the opening Salt Lake City and St. Louis
concerts by Bruce Hendricks in the form of a rock
concert/documentary. Hendricks is no stranger to the
wonderful world of Disney, having exec-produced all
three Pirates
of the Caribbean flix. His spare documentary approach
gave us just enough to see how complicated the show was,
but not enough to see how a single number evolved into
the final product. This would have been the stuff for a
bonus feature that never happened – at least not for
now.

Miley's parents are very much present – always
respectful and supportive, yet coaxing when Miley was
reluctant to place her trust in her fellow dancers,
having been dropped once. Miley's mom, among other
things, is her daughter's dresser, making certain that
everything comes off and goes on in the right sequence
during those incredibly brief costume changes. Billy
Ray, for all his stage experience, struck me as less
centered than his daughter, whether he was being
encouraging or extolling her virtues.

In preparation of this review – and to get the proper
perspective on things - I interviewed my 11-year old
friend, Cheyenne, who has seen the concert in three of
its permutations (the live show in San Jose, the
theatrical movie in 3-D and the TV movie. Cheyenne says
she's pretty much oversaturated with Hannah by now -
whose name, she quickly adds, can be seen everywhere –
adding she's ready for the older, more rock & roll
oriented Miley. Since Cheyenne is a huge fan of the
Jonas Brothers, especially middle brother Joe, she was
more than happy to see them featured in the tour. She
liked that the movie broke up the concert with the
backstage clips, but felt that they weren't as funny as
she expected, given the advertising.

The theatrical cut had its television premiere in 3D on
the Disney Channel on July 26, 2008 (which was
practically yesterday) and had other showings in 2D, 4:3
and letterbox, as well as HD right up to the release of
the DVD & Blu-ray versions. The DVD and Blu-ray videos
are, to the disappointment of many fans, not entirely
identical to the theatrical version of the movie: there
are a few additional songs, and a couple of omissions –
likewise for the backstage material (if I read my
Wikipedia right
HERE)

The idea for the tour, which its title cleverly
underscores, was to bring Miley and Hannah together –
and more to the point, to unmask Hannah as Miley and
introduce Miley, as herself, to her audience. (Would the
real Kathy Selden take a bow!) The concert evenly
divides the songs between the trendy Hannah and the
tomboyish Miley – with a few numbers by the Jonas
Brothers
between them before Hannah can step out of her telephone
booth as Miley.

For it is Miley Cyrus who is the real superstar here.
She wrote most of the songs and, taking nothing away
from Kenny's exuberant stage direction, provides the
show's energy and heartbeat. Of course, Miley doesn't
have to do all this by herself. When we see the
elaborate staging and choreography for the concert,
where every turn of the leg, every arm and hand gesture
seems
designed for effect and spontaneity by turns, we can't
help but be impressed, as she must, by the visible and
invisible support she gets from all quarters. (Judy
Garland never had it so good.) Even the audience appears
to collude in the illusion of artless bedlam.

At one point, Miley tells her adoring young fans – and
they are young! - that the "reason you are having so
much fun and I'm getting a chance to live my dream" is
because of the fine work by her crew and backup
musicians. I don't know just how scripted that line is,
but combining the idea of their fun and Miley's dream
seems to me to speak right to the heart of the matter:
It tells us how Miley lives in the altered state that
she does and why the audience shares in this with her.
It's as if they were to scream loud enough, her life on
stage would infect theirs. It's guaranteed to infect
their dreams.

Image:
8.5/9
The first number indicates a relative level of
excellence compared to other Blu-ray DVDs on a ten-point
scale. The second number places this image along the
full range of DVDs, including SD 480i.

The 2-D Picture: Having just reviewed Disney's teenage
musical, Camp Rock, on Blu-ray last week, and finding
the image not of high caliber, I was a little surprised
to see how very much better the BOBWC movie turned out.
And while the backstage and other docufootage was
variable (from fair to excellent), the concert material
was fabulous. To be fair, the action rarely settled down
long enough for me to evaluate the image properly, still
the entire approach to rendering the live event was of a
different species entirely. The transfer appeared not to
enhance or alter the original photography, permitting
color changes and pyrotechnic explosions as they must
have appeared to the audience. Flesh tones looked
natural only when they were not recast by the lighting
director.

The 3-D Picture: The Blu-ray box includes not one, but
four pair of nasty 3D glasses that eventually take their
toll on the ears – but then they weren't designed for my
ears. They have to be taken off anyhow for the
non-concert segments of the movie, which made for a
needed respite. I confess my experience with 3D is
largely confined to theatrical movies that were lit with
3D projection and viewing (with glasses) in mind. I
always preferred the black & white movies (like Creature
From the Black Lagoon) because the color and brightness
losses for color movies cut into advantages of the
illusion of three dimensions. Without getting deeply
into the technicals here, what we respond to is the not
inconsiderable falloff in light (I'll admit I've seen
much worse) and color values, even reducing the picture
to shades of purple. That said, I found the experience
to be clever and, to an extent, engaging. My main
problem was the constantly changing perspective
distortion that would result in parts of one's body in
the foreground appearing to be separate from the rest of
it. Should be a kick in the pants for the younger set,
however.

Audio & Music:
7<8/7
The rock concerts and amplified musicals I've attended
over the years have had pretty much universally awful
audio – which is surprising when you consider what's at
stake. I remember a Camel concert in the early 1970s
whose sound was decent, but by and large, there's
usually more noise than music, with overindulged bass
and treble, and voices that get buried in the mire or
are shrill to the point of headache. I attended a Hugh
Masekela concert at UC Berkeley just this year, which
was one of the better attempts at getting to the heart
of the music and projecting to the audience. But, under
the best conditions, in the best venues, where you sit
can undermine the best of intentions.

Which brings me to the question of audio for a rock
concert. In an important, but easily misunderstand way,
there is no real-world comparison between a live,
theatrical rendering and a video. Not so much because
the video is unable to incorporate the original audio –
and it wouldn't have been able to come close before the
advent of uncompressed audio on high definition discs –
but because what the concert audience hears is not what
the recording engineer hears. Even if the recording
engineer can capture his or her intentions in a surround
mix, it isn't going to be the same as what the concert
audience hears. And, if my past experience is any guide,
this can only be a good thing.

The new mix has the opportunity to bypass the problems
inherent in a live concert – the presence and
overwhelming noise of the audience and the playback
equipment and ambience of the hall. Not that a home
theatre system is likely to be any better, but the mix
might. And to the extent that one's audio system at home
is up to it, the result can actually be clearer and more
dynamic than the experience of anyone in the concert
hall at the live event. Of course, there is nothing, not
even a good surround sound system, that can recreate the
electricity of a shared experience with 2000 other
like-minded fools, but we here understand that
limitation and move on.

So, what about the two uncompressed English audio tracks
for BOBWC. Since both the 7.1 and 2.0 mixes are rendered
at roughly the same level, it makes comparison
relatively easy: The 2.0 PCM mix is a mite clearer, the
voices a little better separated from the backup,
however the bass suffers big time and the audience just
about disappears. In short, the sense of involvement and
immersion is practically zero. You might as well be
listening to a CD.

Alas, the 7.1 DTS-HD, while terrific at reproducing the
feel of the hall with both audience and the performers
in it, the bass and mid-bass swallows the voices and the
guitars (what guitars?) I hasten to add that my playback
system, as good as it is, might be improved with a
better player (I have the PS3, but something like the
Denon deck is reported to have better audio) and an
Audio Note amplifier for the surround.

I must further add that for Miley's half of the concert,
what I just reported as liabilities recedes: the guitars
and drums regain their natural liveliness and quite a
bit of their power; and the voices, especially Miley's,
begins to emerge from the muck. (By the way, the two
Bonus songs are realized in 5.1 DD and therefore do not
have the benefit of uncompressed audio.)

Operations:
7
Walt Disney Studios Blu-rays continue their chapter-skipable
previews and prom os before the loading of the feature
film begins (And once again I am grateful for the PS3).
The menu is laid out so that even the dullest of us can
use them without assistance. Chapter stops are
coincident with the intros for the various songs, which
can only be a good thing.

Extras:
3
"The Ultimate Tour" is cute and brief as we follow a
casual and candid Miley about (and later a Jonas or
two), but it's not really meant to be informative. As
mentioned earlier, the very nature of the movie offers
clues, but little substance to the how of the concert –
for that matter, likewise, the why. A bonus featurette
following a stage number from conception to its final
execution would have been just the ticket. Also needed
was something to flesh out the relationship between
Hannah and Miley. It's not a question that the main
audience for this concert film already knows this, but
that a feature is needed to document the journey. The
Sing-Along provides the lyrics for the two or three kids
who don't already know them by heart and for the older
kids, like us, who might want to know just what this
15-year old is singing about.

Bottom line:
9/7
For its intended audience, and especially on this
awesome Blu-ray video, the BOBWC movie is an essential
purchase. For those who see ourselves as cultural
historians and cinephiles, the Hannah Montana and Miley
Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert has to be seen and
heard at least once to be believed and believed in.